She has now kindly sent me a second guest post, with some great career tips.

How Changing Your Thinking Will Change Your Life

Let me tell you why your career should be built from passion, hard work and perseverance. If you do your job half-heartedly, chances are your output will be half-baked as well. In the self-publishing industry, authors won’t get to publish a great book or improve their sales if they are not passionate about what they do and if they don’t work well for it. People publish and sell millions of books a year. If a self-published author won’t put in as much effort, then those books will remain invisible. At times, even when you’ve dedicated a great deal of time and energy to your work, success might still seems so far away. Some of these indie authors would succumb to doubt and insecurity when results are stagnant. They begin to ask themselves whether or not success is possible, whether or not they should have done this or that they should continue.

As a bridge that leads these authors to acknowledging their full potential, I’ve given them some counsel that definitely will work for you. Whatever field you may be in, allow these wise words to spike up your positivity:

I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.

– Maya Angelou

Making a living simply denotes the act of survival. You work so you can afford to have the newest gadgets, a bigger house, and a better car or perhaps so society can acknowledge you as a success. In a sense, it does make you happy – pampered, well-clothed and you probably have a lot of trophies that scream “awesome”. Working is not a bad thing. However, devoting your time solely to your job will make you miss-out on the best things in life, and I’m not talking about fancy cars or posh mansions. Life is short. Yes, it’s a cliché but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Yes, you’ve got to commit to your job. However, you should not let it consume you. In a blink of an eye, years can go by. You might be missing out on a lot of great moments – Christmas dinners, Thanksgiving dinners, dates, reunions and some “you” time. So, remember, your job is just a small part of your life.

Success doesn’t come to you, you go to it.

– Marva Collins

Pigs will start flying before you can even reap success from doing nothing. Trust me. Even the Kardashians worked hard to achieve their fame. You really can’t leave it all to fate. For instance, one of the common misconceptions of book marketing is not having the need to promote when your book is about a popular topic. When we say content is king, great content will help you sell but it doesn’t mean you have to dump whatever marketing ideas you’ve planned. No matter how great your book is, if you don’t do anything to broadcast it to the world, you won’t get an audience. If you want to succeed, then be a player in the game, or else several other people clambering the ladder of success will own the top spot.

Desire! That’s the one secret of every man’s career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire.

– Johnny Carson

Desire is what fuels you to achieve whatever you want in life. The sheer interest in doing better can ultimately make you a voracious learner, and it will make you persevere more in honing your skills. Your passion for your craft and your desire for success can propel you out of whatever crummy circumstance you are in. If you absolutely love what you do, you can defy the odds and reap success. Build your career with desire as a foundation. You will be more motivated to work and you will be happy with what you do.

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

– Michael Jordan

The people who achieve success are the ones capable of putting themselves back together each time they fall apart. For some self-published authors, success is instant. For others, it takes weeks, months or years even. The important thing is being resilient. It means having the courage to stand up after you’ve fallen. So, if it doesn’t work out, don’t be dismayed. Give it another go! Stand tall and stand proud. If you want to succeed, allow yourself to learn from your mistakes. Continue to strive to build a better you.

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.

– Norman Vincent Peale

If you don’t even believe in yourself, how do you expect others to believe in you? Self-doubt is destructive. It breeds hate. It makes you loathe yourself and the people around you. The truth of the matter is that there will always be someone who can do better than you. However, that’s not a reason to encourage insecurity and bitterness. If you believe that you are great, in time, you will become it.

The key to achieving confidence is self-love. It sound narcissistic and lonely but it’s not. Only when we’re able to accept ourselves for who we are, what we have and what we are capable of do we begin to exude confidence.

Know the difference between your hobbies and your passions.

– B.S Wood

Don’t be the jack of all trades, master of none. If you juggle everything at once, you’ll never be able to focus on a single thing because you’re too busy making sure that nothing falls apart. This is why I advise self-published authors to get a team. Writers may not be great graphic designers or businessmen. Any writer can’t just learn Photoshop in a day. Although it sounds fun and exciting, it might impede the progress of your entire work.

Step out of your comfort zone. It’s time to make your dreams a reality.

You can’t stay in your comfort zone forever. Again, if you want success, then you’ve got to go to it.

Allow me to share why I admire self-published authors. Despite the stigma of self-publishing, they do it anyway. They have not allowed people to dictate them that their work is not good enough to get published. They have proven that the bestsellers list is not only for traditionally published works but for self-published ones as well. With hard work and perseverance, they have proven that success is possible for the self-published author. Let them serve as your example. Be motivated to pursue your dreams. It’s high time you embraced a new perspective towards your career. If your job isn’t your dream, then don’t be afraid to veer away from it. Remember, nothing good comes to those who wait, so go out and pursue your dreams!

44 Comments

This one really got me: “Success doesn’t come to you, you go to it.” I like this because it puts achievement in your own hands. And the best path for that is to do really honest work and keep building your craft. Very motivating post today. Thank you.

And I agree, we can’t expect to just get something. We have to go after it. Sometimes, it happens easily, but we should never be mistaken: when it happens, it’s by mere luck. It won’t happen again. So we should take the advantage, but be ready to work hard still.

Reblogged this on graemecummingdotnet and commented:
Sometimes you need a kick in the behind (well, I do anyway). Just lately, I’ve allowed some of the more mundane stuff to get in the way of writing – you know, work and stuff like that. I suppose work has to be done, and if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it properly.

But I remember Stephen Covey commenting that sometimes you can climb the ladder of success only to realise it’s leaning against the wrong wall. That’s a thought to stop you in your tracks.

It all makes total sense. Of course most of us start out thinking our first book will sell like hotcakes – no sweat. Then the wake up call when desire, drive, faith, and perseverance have to kick in. Thanks Jill and Nicholas for the great post. 🙂

Whaaat? My first book did sell like hotcakes. I mean, Electra makes these great muffins, and I usually eat them all. Which is, like, a dozen. And I’ll have you know that my first book sold a dozen copies. So there :b

Great post, thanks. I am, however, currently trying to get agents to look at my debut novel. A career in writing is still a long way off. Although I was just paid $10 for a short story, so I guess I’m nearly there…

Some very good quotes, and they will no doubt inspire many writers and authors to greater things. I do worry about the modern obsession with success though. Living a good life, and doing the right thing, should always be our real goal, surely?
Best wishes, Pete.

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